What's really stupid is that the majority of Android smartphone users don't own flagship smartphones, so calling the most recent iPhone boring or behind the times is absolutely ridiculous. You've got these select few tech-head users calling anything below the latest flagship smartphone some boring piece of crap. C'mon. The world's majority of smartphone users do not require cutting-edge smartphones. They just want some device they can use daily and works pretty well for them. Reliable and having a decent battery life would likely keep most users smiling. Almost no one needs all the bells and whistles most flagship smartphones have. I have no doubt the Galaxy S8 is a wonderful-looking smartphone that's loaded with features, but that still doesn't make every other year-old smartphone on the planet some boring, nearly useless device.

I honestly don't understand how analysts and tech journalists who likely don't know crap about what average users think can make all these judgment calls about what's good and what isn't good. I think most smartphone manufacturers flagship smartphones are pretty decent. Smartphones do so much for so many people in this world. Smartphones are probably the most cutting-edge products of all consumer products. They're used more than any other consumer product by a long-shot (excepting maybe a TV). I'd think any smartphone costing at least $500 would be absolutely amazing for 95% of the people on the planet. If the Galaxy S8 is so great, then what about all the other lower model smartphones Samsung makes? Are they also considered crap and behind the times?

A10 is a superior chip, but both Exynos and the Snapdragon absolutely warrant further investment. They're arguably the 2 & 3 best mobile chips out there, and much much better than anything Intel has produced (for mobile).

A10 has an integration/optimization advantage. And while Android is decent, efforts to optimize it have legged. When Google has a monopoly, why bother...

The article does not say that Exynos or Snapdragon does not "warrant further investment."

It says, as you quoted, "neither of which generate comparable profits to warrant equal investment going forward."

The difference is significant. Apple is selling far more premium A10-powered iPhones than premium Exynos+Snapdragon phones, and at a higher margin. That enables Apple to invest more into performance going forward, extending its lead. Most of the phones Samsung sells are middle or lower tier phones with older/basic processors.

Samsung (and Android) is in the same position PowerPC was 10-15 years ago: there's no critical mass demand for high-end chips, and the majority of profits are fueling the development of another chip family. The problem for Android is that the alternative chips are proprietary to Apple, so it can't switch the way Apple's Macs, Xbox 360, PS3 etc all switched from PPC to Intel. The other problem is that Samsung's high end isn't growing. Who is going to speculatively invest in super fast smartphone chips when the only market outside of Apple is middle tier phones that sell for < $300?

Qualcomm is certainly going to keep investing in Snapdragon, but as long as it only gets a fraction of Samsung's flagship business, a couple million Pixels and other minor flagships, it can't keep up with Apple. Especially as it gets hit with a $1billion fine from every government and is now getting sued for billions by Apple and other partners.

Many of the smartphone makers in china are working on their own ARM chips. If each of them designs and builds a custom chip, there are no economies of scale. That will result in massive duplication of effort. They're all making low end/cheap phones. How will they keep up "equal investment" going forward?

To those who say Android phones are perfectly fine for the vast majority of users, who use their phone for basic tasks such as texting, FB, web browsing and games, I have to agree, and so does Tim Cook. You'll recall him saying [celebrating] Tnat Android is often the first smartphone for many users, because they are affordable, but that many users graduate to an iPhone, thus Andriod represents something of a smartphone training ground and feeder for the iPhone. I moved to the Philippines 7 months ago and I can tell you I see many old feature phones still being used (It was all about attaining a Nokia back in the day) and among Smartphones its all mid-tier Androids, with Samsung a favorite. But there are several iStores here in Cebu, and more around the country. This Apple reseller presents a store concept modeled closely on Apple stores, with curved glass facades and clean display tables. Very high end, and they sell only Apple products, plus the same small array of Bluetooth speakers and 3rd-party accessories found in an Apple Store back in the states.

And here's what else I can tell you, from the view of the large city spat community I am well plugged into here. When a Filipina has a foreigner boyfriend and the time comes to replace her phone, she invariably requests an iPhone. Gen a used, older generation one will do. They aspire to the I.phone here, and are the envy of their friends if they have one. Gotta think it's not different in other emerging markets. They look ve that iMessage costs them less via data load versus texting load, same with FaceTime versus call load. Load is the term here used to describe pre-paid data, voice, and text costs, each sold separately and in packages. Fact is, around the world, Android is popular because an Android phone can be had for far less than an iPhone. Given the choice,moor the same price, I think I don't personally know anyone who would opt for Android.

Great article man, the past month with all the articles reminds me of how the media was the year of the iPhone 5S where every article was stating (but the iPhone still doesn't have big displays yet) Software is the name of the game and will always trump hardware after the wow factor wheres off. Its not just iOS either, after all these year the App Store is still better than the Google Play Market, and Apps even big named ones like Snapchat and big Games are still on iPhone compared with Android.
This says it all right here what you wrote and if just plain fact all the Sammy/Android fans forget or don't want to believe:
"Apple's critics like to fawn over Samsung in an apparent effort to prop up some real competition, but that praise hasn't done anything to bolster Samsung's performance in the last three years. Just to match the performance of the old Galaxy S4, the new Galaxy S8 would need to sell massively more than last year, but analysts are expecting significantly fewer sales this year (as much as 20 percent fewer), on top of the whole Note 7 thing."
The S4 was there biggest hit. I remember around that time I knew a lot of people who owned Samsung devices, but ever since then do I ever rarely see them out in the wild, there out there but back in that year it was more like 70% of the people I knew had iPhone to 30% Sammy, now its more 90% to 10%! The years from the S6 to now is also when Sammy decided to finally ditch there crappy plastic builds and finally move to metal/glass. It just proves your point more that software and the ecosystem is more important in the long run. I also love how the media and all these Youtubers every year need to make comparison videos between he Galaxy and iPhone, I mean its just hardware thats different it still runs android its the same every year. But to Samsung's advantage it props there new Galaxy Phone up to the same level of the iPhone in always comparing the two which Im sure Samsung just loves. Its been 10 years since the iPhone most people are invested like I have thousands of dollars spent on Apps and Services its the ecosystem I mean at this point I can't see many people ever switching if they think about all the cost in doing so. Apple stores continue to be packed on a daily basis no matter what time I seem to go by them, they are doing just fine (extemely well) if that foot traffic ever lets down I'll know something has shifted but nowhere in sight. The one Advantage hardware wise right now and maybe in the last year or two Samsung has had over Apple and what let them ship basically a small bezel phone first is that they own 95% of the OLED business to themselves. The S6 was the year OLED finally also got pretty color accurate. Even for this years iPhone its hard to provide Apple with the scale they need to produce so many OLED phones. Apple sells such huge amounts of inventory and its all for premium iPhones the OLED production just wasn't there for Apple to even use until now. Great that there looking ahead at Micro-LED tho, Samsung must be freakin about what could take place just a few short years down the road for them. Apples SOC/ Chip team best in the business as well and really has no competition to speak of. Most powerful and battery efficient chips not he market and it will stay that way for the foreseeable future. Apple can also optimize the hell out of them and use smaller batteries than Android models and get battery life. Almost every situation is a win/win for Apple and the future looks very bright if they can have vertical integration with not just the software but the hardware as well owning the entire stack of components.

The problem for the iPhone is not Samsung, like appleinsider seems to think, it is Android in general.

That's been said so many times over the years and it still
isn't true. Nokia. Motorola. Huawei. LG. Samsung. Google's Nexus line, and now
its Pixel line. They were all supposed to take out Apple either alone or as a
group. Apple is not only still around, but thriving, and looks extremely
healthy for the foreseeable future.

Who said they were supposed to take Apple out? Most Android phones compete against other Android phones first.

Of all Android purchasers, how many do you think say to themselves, 'will I get an iPhone or an Android?'. Most (the vast majority) say to themselves ' Which Android will I get?'

Apple is doing great today. In terms of market share Android is doing greater.

Tons of people said the Android group would take Apple out. It's implied in your earlier post when you wrote Apple's "problem" was Android instead of Samsung.

Half of the Android fans that I know -- some of them obnoxious Apple haters -- are now iPhone diehards. I've only owned three Android phones (well four since we recently bought a travel phones to escape snooping by TSA et al), but my next purchase is an iPhone. I'm sick and tired of lagging updates and I want a seamless experience wit my iPad and MacBook.

Apple suffocates the also-rans in terms of profit. It'll gladly let Android have market share. It's horrible business to say "Hey we have tiny margins and/or lost millions, but look at our friggin' marketshare!"

The problem for the iPhone is not Samsung, like appleinsider seems to think, it is Android in general.

That's been said so many times over the years and it still
isn't true. Nokia. Motorola. Huawei. LG. Samsung. Google's Nexus line, and now
its Pixel line. They were all supposed to take out Apple either alone or as a
group. Apple is not only still around, but thriving, and looks extremely
healthy for the foreseeable future.

IMHO buying a phone has now just come down to personal preference, there isn't much difference between any of them these days, they all do the job asked of them pretty admirably. Like cars, I pick the one I like in my price range, they all get me from a to b and back again at the end of the day. The market has matured so fast I can't justify spending 1000s on a top tiered phone anymore. If more people start thinking like me, it will hurt Apple as they will no longer be able to justify their high prices, but it will be good for consumers. Apple aren't a tag heuer brand, where you have to pay through the nose for exclusivity.

Sorry Saltyzip, but you are an Android apologist on an Apple based site. Samsung S8 phones are relatively the same price as the iPhone so do not use price point as an excuse for your bias.

You do realize that MANY people run Mac PC's AND run Android phones right?? Why can't you be tolerant of someone that wants to use something different than you??

You do realise people run Mac AND run Android phones are not THAT MANY, right? And even then, it's not by choice but some silly company policy, right? Given them a choice, they would rather go for Apple ecosystem then having a headache of multiple platforms and cloud services.

I've ran iPhones and iPads (owned 2 of each), Mac OS (ran iMacs at work for YEARS), Windows(currently run an 10 year old Dell laptop.) and Android(on my second Android phone). There is NO headache. Again I repeat there is NO HEADACHE in running more than one platform. EVERYTHING I do online is done in the cloud. EVERYTHING. I am currently typing this on a 10 year old Dell laptop. I can do EVERYTHING on this laptop that I can do on my iPad mini, or my LG G5. I use Windows, Android AND iOS. DAILY. You want to believe that this can't be done. You're wrong. Totally wrong.

Evernote?? Works everywhere.Gmail?? Works everywhere.Google photos?? Works everywhere.OneNote?? Works everywhere.MS Office?? Works everywhere.Google Play Music?? Works everywhere.Slack?? Works everywhere.Chrome?? Works everywhere.Lastpass?? Works everywhere.Tripadvisor?? Facebook?? Instagram?? Twitter?? Youtube?? WhatsApp?? Apple Music?? Spotify?? Netflix?? Skype?? Yelp?? Paypal?? Kindle?? Audible?? Amazon?? eBay?? Dropbox?? Wordpress?? Adobe Photoshop, Reader, etc...?? You guessed it. They ALL work. Everywhere. It's ALMOST as if the app developers designed them this way.

As long as the faithful stay with an iPhone then Apple has many more profitable years ahead.

....

As long as the Apple faithful continue buying iPhones, then nothing will change, but don't expect to get best bang for your buck.

I get far better bang for my buck than I ever could with a cheaper Android phone. I've watched and helped my girlfriend, dad and brother use theirs and always shake my head at how confusing and disconnected the whole experience is. I watched my dad try to print a photo. The built-in photo Gallery app would not print it bigger than 4x6 while a dedicated printer app would print it at the full size of the paper. It's small annoyances like that which add up to a very frustrating experience overall. I don't have (or at least never have had) those kinds of frustrations on my iPhone, in my 8 years of using one.

As long as the faithful stay with an iPhone then Apple has many more profitable years ahead.

The problem for the iPhone is not Samsung, like appleinsider seems to think, it is Android in general.

Google, LG, Motorola, Huawei all make great phones and most eclipse iPhone on the camera too. Look at the verge website for their latest camera shootout and you'll see iPhone doesn't even make the podium.

Apple phone inovation has plateaued​, technical advancement takes a long time, and because they are running out of features to entice people to upgrade they are now falling behind what was the chasing pack.

As long as the Apple faithful continue buying iPhones, then nothing will change, but don't expect to get best bang for your buck.

You are citing `the Verge as a credible balanced site...

You are posting in thread hanging off a DED article. Balance is not something that springs to mind.

The thing that really is kind of crazy is how bad Android phones are at web browser performance when "the open web" is supposedly central to Google's existence. You'd think that of all things on an Android phone, the web browser would be highly optimized and would be competitive with the iPhone. But you'd be wrong. So weird.

Pop into your local phone shop and pickup an internet connected android phone such as the pixel and fire up chrome. See if your perception on web browsing on android changes. Google have made strives in the past two years, I can't say if it rivals the iPhone, but from my experience its fast and almost silky smooth.

Can you direct me to an android browser that doesn't collect my personal data?

I needed this article today. I have a colleague who just got her S8 Plus and keeps waving it in my face to irritate me (they even copied the "Plus" now! they are shameless). It isn't worth my time trying to explain to her why she is wrong. I do find it completely baffling though. She has an iPad and loves it. How can she not see how superior iOS is if she uses both operating systems every day? As far as I can tell the thing she loves about the S8 is that it has a nice screen. The kind of screen Apple have obviously been working towards and will come out with in September. Except it will be implemented more thoughtfully and will be better, as always. People are strange.

You are VERY misinformed. Samsung had phones named Plus in 2011......I hope you are not "shameless" in your apology to your colleague.
Obviously your colleague isvery open minded and likes the Samsung S8 Plus.....perhaps you should open your mind and try Android.....you will be surprised at how well it works. Reading articles from Daniel Eran Digler will not give you a realistic idea of other devices that are out there.

Using knockoff iPhones has ZERO to do with "open-mindedness".

if they were really open minded they would try an i.am.plus Dial or blackberry Passport.

As long as the faithful stay with an iPhone then Apple has many more profitable years ahead.

The problem for the iPhone is not Samsung, like appleinsider seems to think, it is Android in general.

Google, LG, Motorola, Huawei all make great phones and most eclipse iPhone on the camera too. Look at the verge website for their latest camera shootout and you'll see iPhone doesn't even make the podium.

Apple phone inovation has plateaued​, technical advancement takes a long time, and because they are running out of features to entice people to upgrade they are now falling behind what was the chasing pack.

As long as the Apple faithful continue buying iPhones, then nothing will change, but don't expect to get best bang for your buck.

Funny those so called review don't actually take into account ACTUAL USAGE, instead its what I call tripod usage. The huge DSP and co-processing Apple advantage in those fracking reviews are totally flushed down the toilet.

These reviews are jokes. BTW, if 20 companies together beat an Iphone... Well, no one beats and Iphone: so, not sure what your actual point is.

Android companies' fucking customer service alone and support policies is never mentioned in reviews yet that's one major reason for buying Apple and not something else.

Bang for the buck means you can actually sell damn phone in 3 years for a decent price and had a full and happy use the whole time (and not just the first 3 months you bought the phone).

To those who say Android phones are perfectly fine for the vast majority of users, who use their phone for basic tasks such as texting, FB, web browsing and games, I have to agree, and so does Tim Cook. You'll recall him saying [celebrating] Tnat Android is often the first smartphone for many users, because they are affordable, but that many users graduate to an iPhone, thus Andriod represents something of a smartphone training ground and feeder for the iPhone. I moved to the Philippines 7 months ago and I can tell you I see many old feature phones still being used (It was all about attaining a Nokia back in the day) and among Smartphones its all mid-tier Androids, with Samsung a favorite. But there are several iStores here in Cebu, and more around the country. This Apple reseller presents a store concept modeled closely on Apple stores, with curved glass facades and clean display tables. Very high end, and they sell only Apple products, plus the same small array of Bluetooth speakers and 3rd-party accessories found in an Apple Store back in the states.

And here's what else I can tell you, from the view of the large city spat community I am well plugged into here. When a Filipina has a foreigner boyfriend and the time comes to replace her phone, she invariably requests an iPhone. Gen a used, older generation one will do. They aspire to the I.phone here, and are the envy of their friends if they have one. Gotta think it's not different in other emerging markets. They look ve that iMessage costs them less via data load versus texting load, same with FaceTime versus call load. Load is the term here used to describe pre-paid data, voice, and text costs, each sold separately and in packages. Fact is, around the world, Android is popular because an Android phone can be had for far less than an iPhone. Given the choice,moor the same price, I think I don't personally know anyone who would opt for Android.

It has been proven that Android has a higher loyalty rate, so to think that people will buy an Android device with the thought that they will "upgrade" to apple phone is false and disingenuous.

Will people switch back and forth absolutely but not in droves as you allude to.

Apple has really pulled ahead the last couple of phones with a screen that is as good, or nearly as good as Samsung. But wait, guess who makes the screen now for Apple? That's right: Samsung. If you are reading this article from an IPhone made the last few years, you are reading it from a Samsung screen!

The problem for the iPhone is not Samsung, like appleinsider seems to think, it is Android in general.

That's been said so many times over the years and it still
isn't true. Nokia. Motorola. Huawei. LG. Samsung. Google's Nexus line, and now
its Pixel line. They were all supposed to take out Apple either alone or as a
group. Apple is not only still around, but thriving, and looks extremely
healthy for the foreseeable future.

IMHO buying a phone has now just come down to personal preference, there isn't much difference between any of them these days, they all do the job asked of them pretty admirably. Like cars, I pick the one I like in my price range, they all get me from a to b and back again at the end of the day. The market has matured so fast I can't justify spending 1000s on a top tiered phone anymore. If more people start thinking like me, it will hurt Apple as they will no longer be able to justify their high prices, but it will be good for consumers. Apple aren't a tag heuer brand, where you have to pay through the nose for exclusivity.

Sorry Saltyzip, but you are an Android apologist on an Apple based site. Samsung S8 phones are relatively the same price as the iPhone so do not use price point as an excuse for your bias.

You do realize that MANY people run Mac PC's AND run Android phones right?? Why can't you be tolerant of someone that wants to use something different than you??

You do realise people run Mac AND run Android phones are not THAT MANY, right? And even then, it's not by choice but some silly company policy, right? Given them a choice, they would rather go for Apple ecosystem then having a headache of multiple platforms and cloud services.

I can do EVERYTHING on this laptop that I can do on my iPad mini, or my LG G5.

Apple has really pulled ahead the last couple of phones with a screen that is as good, or nearly as good as Samsung. But wait, guess who makes the screen now for Apple? That's right: Samsung. If you are reading this article from an IPhone made the last few years, you are reading it from a Samsung screen!

Apple phone inovation has plateaued​, technical advancement takes a long time, and because they are running out of features to entice people to upgrade they are now falling behind what was the chasing pack.

As long as the Apple faithful continue buying iPhones, then nothing will change, but don't expect to get best bang for your buck.

Errrnnt. Wrong. Apple's iphone sales tell a very different story -- massive sales, massive profit. It sucks up nearly all the profit. Your second point is also bunk -- it's not some small cult of macheads buying iphones. It's a mass, mass market of normals.